Help Olga & Her Family Start Over

Hello there! My name is Jessica Resnick and I’m fundraising on behalf of my Ukrainian friend Olga Locquiao who has unfortunately had to flee her country due to the ongoing war.

 

Olga, her mother, and her two young daughters (1yo and 6yo) lived in Berdiansk. Being so close to Crimea and the Russian border, the roads leading out of Berdiansk were quickly taken over by the Russian army as early as the first day of the invasion. Before the war began, they had contemplated leaving, but had chosen to stay in Berdiansk due to limited means and uncertainties around uprooting their whole family to start their lives over in a foreign country.

 

Even before the war broke out, Olga has had an extremely difficult couple of years. Olga used to live in the Philippines with her husband Brian, who was Filipino, and helped out with Brian’s family business in addition to being a full-time housewife. In September 2020, when she was still pregnant with her second daughter Aurora, tragedy struck. They were in Berdiansk visiting her mother and had a home invasion in the middle of the night. Brian was stabbed when he defended their family and subsequently died in the hospital. Shortly after that event, both of her in-laws in the Philippines also passed away to COVID and her life was completely turned upside down. Having been left with not much choice, she returned to her hometown in Berdiansk to live with her mother with her two young children.

 

When the war first began, Olga hid her daughters in their closet and padded the closet as much as she could to muffle out the shelling noises while continuing to care for them like business-as-usual and hoping to wait out the war. As the war escalated and the Russian soldiers took over Berdiansk, basic life sustenance became rare and costly, and dead bodies started to pile up on the streets. Then, utilities cut out and they had to live with sub-zero temperature with no heat or electricity. After the Russian army had occupied Berdiansk for some time, things actually got better for a few days, as they tried to conduct business and gave the citizens of Berdiansk an one-hour daily “electricity allowance”; the civilians were able to purchase highly overpriced groceries from the Russians to sustain themselves and warm up with their electric heaters before the electricity would go out again. As the Ukrainian army counterattacked in an effort to cut off the Russian army’s supplies, the civilians were caught in the crossfire and were increasingly cut off. 

 

After a few unsuccessful ceasefire attempts for the humanitarian convoy to provide safe passage to the civilians (people were getting shelled on their way out of Berdiansk), it was finally actually safe for them to travel. Immediately, Olga grabbed her two daughters, her mother, and her Pomeranian dog and left their hometown and sadly, their beloved German Shepherd and Husky behind. After two days of traveling and $1500, Olga and her family were able to make it to Zaporizhzhia and spend the night at a local kindergarten. After they arrived in Zaporizhzhia, their luck seemed to finally have taken a better turn as they were able to hop on a minibus for $500 quickly to get to Lviv. From there, they made a run for the Polish border.

 

Today, Olga and her family are safely situated in Warsaw with the help of the Filipino embassy. However, Warsaw is overburdened with refugees and the embassy can only provide her family housing until Saturday, 4/2. Fortunately, Olga managed to reconnect with an acquaintance of hers in Milan who had promised her a job as long as she can make it there, and getting her and her family to Milan is what we are working on right now. It is unclear if she will be able to get housing support from either the Ukrainian embassy, Filipino embassy, or the Italian government, and it’s possible that her family of 5 will end up homeless without additional help.

 

And this is where you come in. I have been able to provide her with the necessary amounts to cover her transportation out of Ukraine, but it’s difficult for me to continue supporting her and her family get settled in Milan all on my own. A quick search on the internet tells me that for a family of 4 (not including dog), the average cost of rent in Milan is around 2000 euros and living cost is around 3500 euros. Three months of living expenses are then 5500*3=16500 euros, which is roughly $19000 USD. I’m kicking off this fundraiser today for $20000, based on this estimate with a little bit of buffer. This fund will help her family get a fresh new start in the foreign country of Italy and cover basic life needs for three months, so they don’t plunge into poverty and homelessness.

 

It’s 2022, and yet we have a full-blown open warfare in Ukraine where many like Olga’s family have been displaced or died. Olga in particular has had an unbelievably difficult time in her personal life for almost two years now, and I can never imagine what it’s like to be in her shoes. Her strength is admirable and her persistence is what’s keeping her family alive and together. Let’s help this amazing woman get her feet back on the ground.

 

Thank you,

Jessica Resnick